Humans
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Humans
Noise is what ails beaked whales
Large-scale experiments reveal a sensitivity to sonar, apparently at lower levels than other species.
- Health & Medicine
Obesity messes with the brain
Excess weight may compromise memory and concentration, possibly by spurring inflammation that damages white matter.
- Health & Medicine
Body & Brain
Handling fruit can throw off blood-glucose tests, plus an autism gene and itchy feelings in this week’s news.
- Humans
Go east, ancient tool makers
New finds put African hand ax makers in India as early as 1.5 million years ago.
- Humans
A new glimpse at the earliest Americans
Along a stream in central Texas, archaeologists have found a campsite occupied at the tail end of the Ice Age.
- Health & Medicine
Gene therapy for Parkinson’s advances
Brain surgery to insert genetic cargo improves movement in some patients, a study shows.
- Life
Brain chemical influences sexual preference in mice
Males lacking the neurotransmitter serotonin court both sexes equally, researchers are surprised to find.
- Life
Who felt it not, smelt it not
A genetic defect in a crucial protein stops both pain and smells from reaching the brain.
- Humans
Pre-chewed baby food common in HIV-positive households, study suggests
Here’s a particularly disturbing stat: 31 percent of babies in households where the mom is HIV-positive get at least some pre-chewed food. In most cases the surveyed caregivers who reported doing that pre-chewing were the infected moms.
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- Tech
U.S. network detects Fukushima plume
Traces of radioactivity attributable to the earthquake-damaged Fukushima reactor complex in Japan have reached the West Coast of the United States.
- Tech
Chernobyl’s lessons for Japan
Radioactive iodine released by the Chernobyl nuclear accident has left a legacy of thyroid cancers among downwinders — one that shows no sign of diminishing. The new data also point to what could be in store if conditions at Japan’s troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex continue to sour.
